


Roses are Red

by HarkaSun



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, M/M, New York City, The Malec Padlock, True Love, Valentine's Day, first Valentine's Day, malec husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarkaSun/pseuds/HarkaSun
Summary: It's February fourteenth and Alec has arranged a surprise for Magnus. They celebrate their first Valentine's Day as husbands, and as a couple. Featuring a romantic date around NYC and a blast from the past now shown in a better light.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 8
Kudos: 106





	Roses are Red

**Author's Note:**

> Rushed this the day before, but I wanted to get it out there before the day. (It was the 14th here in the UK when I posted this, I promise!)  
> Happy Valentine's Day!

The morning was crisp and bright and a light, icing-sugar dust of snow had settled over the city. It was cold even for February and Magnus Bane was curled up warm and comfortable in the bed he shared with his husband.

It was barely eight o’clock, but Alec would already be at work. As head of the New York institute, he barely got a minute to himself. In three months of marriage, Magnus had stolen the moments as they came, sneaking an entire week to themselves over Christmas, odd weekends every now and then, an evening, a morning; Magnus would take what he could get.

Rolling over in the bed, he felt the sheets were cold and empty beside him and he curled up tighter into his own warmth. He let his eyes open a crack and immediately sat upright as they drifted to take in the room.

Roses. Their bedroom was filled with roses, a dark a perfect red. They sprang from vases and glasses and between books and behind photo-frames; wherever there was a spare surface, roses dominated the space.

“Oh...” Magnus breathed out in surprise, frowning softly as he heard footsteps and what sounded like a low melody from outside the room.

Singing.

The door slid open with no shortage of difficulty, and Alec came wandering in backwards, turning in the doorway. There was a tray in his hands, a plate of waffles topped with summer berries and whipped cream, a cup and saucer of what Magnus presumed to be tea, a small vase with a single, blue rose.

“Alec,” said Magnus, blinking hard and shaking his head wondrously. “What on earth...?”

“Hey, before you say anything,” Alec interrupts slowly, coming forward and setting the tray on the bedside table, perching himself on Magnus’s side of the bed. “I know you don’t keep track of dates. I know it’s been nearer eight hundred years and you get years and days mixed up, centuries sometimes—”

“It was one time, months ago, and I did not mix them up. I was just making absolutely certain—”

Alec lifted a hand to cut him off, a playful look in his eye and a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. “Anyway,” he said, “the point is that I’m not expecting anything in return. That’s not why I’ve done this. I’ve done it because I love you and I want to spend the day showing you just how much.”

He leaned forward and pressed a hand to Magnus’s jaw, bringing his head up to meet for a lingering kiss.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Magnus hummed and smiled softly. “Not the biggest fan of that name to be honest.”

“Well, I’d better get you associating it with something nicer then.” Alec kissed his forehead this time, pulling back to reclaim the tray. “I made you breakfast,” he said and held it out to his husband. “You don’t have to eat it, obviously. I just wanted to do something. Also, finding even one blue rose was an absolute nightmare.”

Magnus blinked slow in his gratitude and took the tray into his lap. “Thank you, Alexander. I can’t believe you went to so much effort for this…”

They talked a little as he ate, about how Alec managed to get the day off (Underhill and Isabelle had a big hand in covering for him), how Alec had managed the roses (turns out he had them mail ordered and arranged them all by hand while Magnus slept), whether or not Magnus heard him singing this morning (he had).

Magnus questioned him on the roses and asked Alec if he had a poem to match, grinning when his husband scrunched his nose and complained in a mutter about poems. Alec did not approve of rhyming unless it was in a children’s book. Love was not about poems for Alec. Love was apparently about grand gestures. And roses. A lot of roses.

Alec was smiling and watching him eat, occasionally stealing his hand to drop a chaste kiss on his knuckles. Magnus huffed softly through his breakfast, abandoning halfway through to kiss Alec properly and open-mouthed. They end up staying in bed for the better part of the morning. Magnus wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Okay,” Alec panted when they had finished, sitting himself upright and running a hand into his hair. Magnus smirked softly at his unruly locks. “As nice as this is, I do have plans for us today.”

“Oh, you do?” asked Magnus, his eyes round in feigned innocence. “You seem to be pretty easily distracted, my love…”

Alec huffed and kissed the crown of his head. “It’s easy to be distracted with you… You’re the most important person in my life and you’re the best person I know. I love you.”

Magnus hummed and leaned into Alec. “I love you too, my darling… But, please, don’t run through all of your proclamations of love in the first few hours of the day.”

“Oh, I’m not even nearly done,” Alec murmured into Magnus’s hair. “There are so many things I want to say to you, and I have the whole day. Now, come on. Let’s hit the town.”

They dressed side-by-side. Alec smiled as he admired Magnus’s outfit, a black and red blazer, a silver chain across his chest, hooked from over his collarbones, and dark skinny jeans, high-set boots completed with silver buckles and red soles. He pinned one of Alec’s roses to his lapel. Magnus spent a few minutes in front of the mirror, magic twisting around his fingers as he did and redid his makeup.

Alec let him take him time, grasping his hand when he settled on darkly lined eyes with a sparkled crimson shadow. The fading magic prickled heat against his palm. “You look so beautiful…”

Magnus smiled and took the lapels of Alec’s dark blazer, admiring the indigo shirt he had picked out, squared silver buttons glinting in the sunlight. “You clean up pretty good yourself. Seeing you all dressed up… kind of makes me want to dress you back down again.”

Alec’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips. “Well, I… I have a little something planned for later, after dinner, if you… if you can wait a little.”

“You’ve been very meticulous with this, haven’t you?”

Alec gave him a gentle smile. “Maybe I’ve been a bit… a bit crazy with the planning, but… Magnus, this is our first Valentine’s Day, not just as husbands, but ever. I know we don’t need a special day to show out love, but you’ve done so much for me. I want to show you that I can be that kind of romantic too.”

Magnus wrapped his arms around the nape of Alec’s neck, lifting on his toes to kiss his lips. “Then lead the way, my love.”

They don’t use portals. Alec leads him through the city streets. Un-glamoured, unashamed, they walk hand-in-hand like so many other couples in New York. They end up on the subway a few times. Magnus decided not to complain too early in the day.

Alec took him past the Rockefeller centre and through Central Park. They took sickeningly cute pictures throughout the duration of the day, selfies in the park and in front of the ‘Love’ sculpture and two glossy slips in a photobooth—both keeping one each. Alec diverted the course halfway into the day—just after a lunch of toasties and cheesecake at Café L’amore— and Magnus suddenly realised where they were going.

“Oh,” he uttered and almost halted in his tracks. “Alec, baby…”

“I know,” said Alec, glancing to him and squeezing his hand in understanding. “I know. I didn’t want to scare you off, which is why I didn’t tell you about this.” He swallowed hard and dipped a hand into his pocket, bringing out a gleaming silver padlock. “I understand if you don’t want to do it again, but… I can promise that nothing like what happened last time will ever happen again.”

Magnus swallowed hard and carefully took the padlock from Alec, turning it over in his hands. His heart leapt up to his throat. Alec had gotten the surface inscribed. It read:

 _Magnus Bane_  
∞ __  
Alec Lightwood

“It’s an infinity symbol,” said Alec, casting Magnus a soft look and his eyes were filled with such adoration and love that Magnus could’ve melted on the spot. “I saw it in one of Isabelle’s magazines and I… I liked that idea. I thought it was… it was nice, y’know, like our love could be infinite or… or eternal. The whole now and forever thing.”

Magnus swallowed hard and blinked slowly up at his husband, purposefully steadying his breaths. “Alec, I don’t…” Alec is looking at him curiously, confused, and Magnus realises he had no clue what he was implying. He just smiled softly. “That’s beautiful, sweetheart.”

“You’re not mad?”

Magnus shook his head, clutching the nape of Alec’s neck. “No, my love, of course not… What happened before, that was my father’s doing, not yours.” He kissed Alec, soft and slow. “I will, Alexander. I will love you forever.”

After they attached the lock to the crowded grid on the ‘O’, sharing another kiss, the couple continued on their way. Alec took him to the Brooklyn Bridge Park, where they sat on the grass talking idly beneath autumnal leaves, kissing lazily and twining their fingers.

It was around half three when Alec suddenly jumped up, grabbing Magnus’s hand an pulling him along. They took the subway—despite Magnus’s protests that he could use magic—up into Manhattan, and Alec walked them both straight into the Empire State Building.

They used a back entrance, a man tipping Alec his cap and letting him through, and Magnus was shocked to find their route completely empty. He could hear other people through the walls, but the way Alec led him was entirely free of life. Because of that, they may have had a few delays to share heated kisses in abandoned stairwells, but eventually they got through to the top.

They watched the sunset from approximately four hundred metres above the ground. When Alec said they were going to the top, he really meant it. The observation deck was crowded beneath them, young lovers and newly weds and elderly couples spending the last hours of Valentine’s Day watching the light fade beneath the skyline of the city. The stars came out and the building came to life.

Illuminated in red lighting, glamoured from the world, Alec wrapped his arm around Magnus’s shoulders, pulling him in close as their legs dangled in empty space below. He pressed a soft kiss to his husband’s temple. The crimson light cast his face in dramatic shadows and Alec thought he had never been more beautiful than he was in this moment.

“You’re my everything,” he whispered, their hands intertwining, fingers laced together over Magnus’s leg. “You’re gorgeous. I’m so, so lucky to have you in my life. I love you so much.”

“Oh, stop,” Magnus uttered fondly, turning his head back to kiss Alec softly. “I love you too, baby, but you don’t need to prove yourself. You don’t need to work so hard to please me. I’ve never been happier than I am when I’m with you. You don’t need to go to any effort to make me happy because you just being here…” He shook his head and huffed a breath of amusement. “I can’t even word it right, I’m sorry. I know you think I’m experienced, but sometimes even I’m lost for words… I just know that I love you.”

Alec’s eyes narrowed in contentment, resting his head against Magnus’s own and following his gaze out over the city, filled with dozens and dozens of couples who had celebrated the day together. Sighing slowly, Alec snuggled close and kissed the side of Magnus’s head, resting them comfortably together once again as they stared down at the glowing lights below.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.”


End file.
